In recent years, online game services provided to client devices by a server device over a communication network have grown popular, and many game titles have been released on multiple platforms. These games are available in a variety of types and categories. Among such games, social games that allow multiple players to participate in the same game are especially booming.
One type of social game that has been proposed is a game in which a group (i.e. a guild) is formed whose members are characters each controlled by a player. The group then battles monster characters or the like (for example, JP2013-244126). Besides a “guild”, such a group may be referred to as a “party”, “team”, “community”, or the like depending on the game.
Recently, games with a function to allow groups of players to battle each other have been proposed. This function is particularly referred to as “Guild vs Guild”, abbreviated as “GvG”. In GvG, a predetermined time slot within a day is set, such as one hour from 20:00 to 21:00 (a shorter time slot being 30 minutes, and a longer time slot being two hours). The assembled groups then battle during this time slot (e.g. a “guild battle”). In some games, a plurality of time slots is set for holding a group battle.
A group battle during a predetermined time slot (i.e. a time slot group battle) is, for example, held as follows. One way is for a player who has entry authority, such as the master who is the leader of the group or the junior master who is the sub-leader, to enter the battle by selecting a predetermined time slot from among a plurality of set battle time slots. The group can thus participate in the group battle. Another way is for all groups to be randomly combined in time slots set in advance (such as one battle in the afternoon and another in the evening), with battles proceeding in accordance with the arbitrary combinations.
There is also a variety of types of battles. Examples include determining victory based on the total number of times characters of the opponent group are defeated, determining victory based on whether all of the participating characters in the opponent group are eliminated, and determining victory based on the amount of points, with a large number of points being awarded for defeating the boss of the opponent group.